A promising Iraqi province is now a tinderbox

Violence surged after U.S. forces handed security to the Iraqis. Now the Americans are stepping back in.
By Solomon Moore
LA Times

January 3, 2007

BAQUBAH, IRAQ — When U.S. forces killed the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi, six months ago in a village near here, they hoped security would improve in this strategic province just north of Baghdad.

Instead, security has collapsed in Diyala province, which now ranks as one of Iraq's most troubled regions. Insurgent attacks have more than doubled in the last year. Violence has devastated the provincial police force and brought reconstruction to a virtual standstill.

Assassinations have claimed the lives of mayors, tribal chieftains, police officials and judges, including a Shiite Muslim member of the provincial council who was killed Tuesday. Many government officials here sleep on cots in their offices because driving home is too dangerous.

And Iraqi security forces have been implicated in so many abuses that the U.S. commander here recently gave his Iraqi counterpart an angry lecture, likening the Iraqi troops to an "undisciplined rabble."

U.S. and Iraqi officials interviewed in recent days blamed the sharp downturn on a combination of U.S. neglect and abuses by the Iraqi army. U.S. troops largely disengaged from security here for weeks at a time, they say, handing the reins to Iraqi forces who proved to be abusive and ineffective.

(The rest is here.)